


We can never go back

by empires



Category: DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Titans (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Court of Owls | Talon (DCU), Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, Explicit Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Switching, Threats of Violence, divine phalli
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 11:07:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25968631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empires/pseuds/empires
Summary: After a brush with certain death, the secret with which Dick has wrestled his entire life becomes a truth he had never imagined.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 17
Kudos: 186
Collections: JayDick Summer Exchange 2020





	We can never go back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wellthatjusthappend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellthatjusthappend/gifts).



The bomb rests in the shaking hands of Charles Lenovonik, a R&D expert at System Dynamics that is in way over his head.

Dick crouches between Charles and the head of the company because he was too late. Always too late. To find the screw to turn the case, to stop the man who lost his faith, and end the suffering caused by this pointless race; this is the house that Nightwing built.

And it’s all falling down.

“Charles, I know what I’m saying to you right now won’t bring anyone back. It won’t stop the misuse of your invention. I know that, okay. I know what the past can do.”

Charles furiously rubs his wet face against his shoulder. His grip on the detonator weakens. “I’m sorry,” he whimpers. “So sorry.”

“I know. But we’re going to make it right.”

“You can’t. Nothing works.”

“It can. All the information, all the lines you put out there, Charles, I followed them. I have everything you need to put System Dynamics down and this clown in jail.” Dick extends his open palm. “We can do this together, Charles. We can win this fight without anyone else getting hurt.”

“Hey! Hey, that’s not. You can’t talk to _him_ ,” said clown gibbers behind the limited safety of his desk. “He’s trying to kill me.”

Charles’s eyes sweep back towards the CEO and his lips pull back in a snarl. It’s apparent to everyone that Nightwing has lost him.

“Nightwing. I appreciate everything you’ve done. I do. But it’s not enough. Jail is too good for this bastard.”

“You trusted me and the employees are safe. Keep trusting me. Keep that little faith in me,” Dick urges. He’ll plead if he has to because despite everything, Lenovonik is a victim here, and Dick knows he can save him.

But Charles only shakes his head. “I’m gonna count to ten, Nightwing. Get out of here. Please.”

“Charles.”

“One.”

“Charles, listen to me.”

“Two.”

Everything falls apart at once. The CEO scrambles for the door, and Charles jerks, enraged and panicked. The rock steady grip on the detonator relaxes, and the whine of the explosive device shatters the tension. Dick only has a moment to meet Charles’s startled gaze and then there’s the rush of flame, the sweep of swift wind, the feel of a hand in his.

***

Dick had never told anyone, not Bruce or his eventual friends, the people he had trusted enough to open his heart, the secret he kept from the world. On the day his parents died he’d felt a hand, warm and certain, wrap around his wrist and pull him to the platform before his parents swung away.

The line snapped before the return that would have guaranteed Mary’s safety. Dick had reached out for her, poised to spring out and do something, but the hand in his held fast.

He never forgot that moment nor did he forgive the presence that saved his life at the expense of his family.

Mere weeks after the death of his parents and becoming Bruce Wayne’s ward, Tony Zucco’s name had leaked to the press. Because Richard Grayson was now linked to arguably the most important figure in Gotham, the information filtered to Dick directly, unwittingly from sympathetic children in his class, heartlessly from paparazzi prowling the school gates waiting for a reaction to the question shouted from prying mouths. Would the newest Wayne Orphan find justice where the first did not?

The answer pounded inside Dick’s heart, a broken tattoo of helplessness vengence, was no, Tony Zucco would _never_ escape what was coming to him.

Tracking Zucco had been surprisingly easy, so easy that Dick understood how a monster like Batman was allowed to grow in the city. Every other method of justice had failed. He gave chase, and Zucco, shaken or tired or strung out, tried escaping to a tiled roof top high above the old fair grounds. A place where Dick reigned supreme.

It was luck that knocked the gun away, but it was skill that kept Dick on his feet dodging punch after punch while throwing the heavy roof tiling at his attacker. At that murderer, who staggered to his knees, fear in his eyes as his victim stalked towards him.

Dick didn’t know what he was going to do next. Only felt the tile in his grasp and the memories of his entire world falling. He could end it here.

Then he sensed a hand in his, heard the sound of his mother’s laughter, felt the strength of his father’s embrace wash over him. The brick tumbled to the ground, and Dick stumbled away, tears filling his eyes. He whirled in a circle screaming, “Get away from me. I hate you. I hate you.”

Zucco’s eyes grew wide. “You’re crazy,” he screeched. “You crazy fucking kid.”

The rooftop shuddered with the weight of a falling body. Dick looked up and for a moment, he thought he saw wings, but it was the flutter of a black cape. The indomitable silhouette of the Dark Knight walked toward him, called out to Dick to stop.

It was the pain in that voice that reached Dick, the tremor of understanding lacing Batman’s impassioned plea. Batman was asking him to make a choice, one that would define the rest of his life, unaware Dick had made it moments before.

***

Years passed in the blink of an eye, and Dick’s life had become a series of strange unexplainable events that could be solved by a keen mind and a sharp right hook. Dick had started to believe those two moments emblazoned in his mind had been a result of trauma. After all, he hadn’t felt it again; the warmth of an ephemeral touch that had been too vivid to be real. There had been odd moments though, times where Dick hadn’t been sure, couldn’t quite name what saved him other than happenstance. Luck. But there had been nothing like that presence. Until the earth began to shake beneath his feet and the cavern ceiling cracked and his calls for Batman were drowned by falling rock

He’d been bruised and broken beneath the rubble for hours without the sound of any life around him. The stale, dusty air and the taste of copper flooded his mouth. Soon, his vision began to waver, darken. That’s when he felt the warm weight of a hand slipping into his own.

“Thought I told you to stay away,” Dick rasped. His voice sounded so far away in his own ears. 

The world around him became incredibly dark, and Dick thought it might be okay to close his eyes. Just for a second. He coughed weakly. “Don’t want to be alone though. Glad you came.”

His senses exploded with the scent of something sweet and dark. He couldn’t recognize it, only know that repeated through him until he opened his eyes and saw--

“Superman?”

“Robin!” Superman’s expression cleared slightly. A faint green light blurred his vision, and Dick realized he was suspended in Green Lantern’s light.

“Batman?”

“He’s here with us. We’re going to get you medical attention right away.”

“Mmm,” Robin muttered. “Find anyone else?”

Superman immediately became alert. “You and Batman are the only ones in the rubble. What happened, Robin? Was someone with you?”

“Nah,” he said, woozily. “Didn’think they‘d stick around....”

***

After the incident in the cave on Dolirtak-7, Dick could point to several other incidents and say that presence was here in my life here. A sense that he should go left and not right. An inexplicably soft landing after being thrown from a motorcycle. A door flying open seconds after Dick vacated a room. The instances were few and far between but they had happened. Only a couple managed to impact Dick as much as the night he spent crouched on the edge of a Gotham skyscraper with his veins pumped full of a noxious toxin.

Fear pulsed through him like a heartbeat. If he closed his eyes, he saw his greatest nightmares in lurid color; and if he kept them open, Dick saw an endless stream of people walking to the building’s edge--Bruce, Alfred, Donna, Clark, Wally, Roy, Garth, Ollie, Dinah, Diana, Zatanna, Barbara, the Commissioner--one after another they looked at him. They waited for him, but he couldn’t move. He tried though, he tried. His muscles screamed from being kept taut, fists curled in white-knuckled need, and then they just fell. Even his parents faded into the clouds while he screamed through his teeth.

“Why couldn’t you save them. Why couldn’t you just. Save them.”

Of course, there was no reply.

He forced himself to creep closer. Just a little closer to the dark closing over him. Just a step further and he could. He could catch them. He just had to try.

Dick extended a shaking arm, trembling fingers, and a hand slid into his. It had been like a warm breeze surrounded him and a sweetly dark scent filled his head. Orange flowers and warm spice. He found himself climbing down and curling into the corner, clutching the imagined presence tightly.

Soon, the sun began to rise, and Dick realized the shaking had stopped. His breathing was easy. The toxin was gone. He’d spent all night on the rooftop, yet not once had he felt the cold.

***

“First team is in place, Rob. Just give me the word and I’m ready.”

Dick watched the troop movements from his position crouched atop the lighthouse. “It’s Nightwing,” he replied, curtly.

“Oh yes, excuse me,” Roy immediately snarked back. “It’s not like I’ve been calling you that for literally ten years now.”

Garth interrupted them with a measured announcement. “Third team is ready, Robin.”

“I read you Third Team.”

“Why does Tempest get to call you that?” Roy asked.

“Because he means it,” Dick said. “Got a question for you, Arsenal. Why don’t--”

“Doesn’t Arsenal forget his callsign? I can answer that,” Wally cut in before the sentence reached the channel, “Tempest is way more badass than Aqualad. No offense, G.”

“Absolutely none taken, Speedy,” Garth said, dryly. There was the crash of waves from the shoreline where he’s posted then Roy and Wally rushed in to fill the silence.

Dick glanced over to where Donna floated beside him knowing they shared the same exasperated (and secretly fond) expression.

“Two minutes,” she said. “Channel stays clear for Nightwing’s extraction request. Titans ready?”

“Titans ready.” The response was immediate, and Donna’s lovely face broke into a fierce grin. She extended her forearm to Dick and they clasped each other as warriors, an unspoken promise uttered between them.

At two fifteen, the time when the facility auto loaded the records of their illegal weapon sales transferred into a secure server on Phalezon-4, two arrows sliced into the compound’s power source and the brightly lit base went dark. The timer began. Eight minutes until the mission ended.

Dick hooked his grapnel line to the railing and sailed down to the open exhaust shaft. While the sea swept air whipped past him, Dick’s program wormed through the generator processing protocol. The emergency power failed, disabling every alarm and sensor, and Dick dropped into the base as planned. No alarms, no muss, no fuss.

Damn did it feel good when a plan came together.

With the infrared lenses active in his mask, Dick began his race to the terminal bank so he could extract the data from the source. He made it through the first three floors without incident, but the final floor had their security teams in place sooner than he had anticipated.

He counted the steps between their rotation, and after the second round, Dick started to move. It was a silent dance around the giant pillar supporting the underground base’s infrastructure. He darted into an open stairwell waiting for two sets of footsteps, paused eight seconds and the next set marched by, and then it was time to move. But when Dick made to leave, something urged him to stop. It was an instinct he recognized, like a tug in his belly, a hand on his shoulder, and he’d long since learned not to ignore those signs. He waited a beat, listened, and after another moment’s hesitation swung out of the door and into the rising barrel of a gun.

A comforting warmth slid into his palm and then tugged him to the left before the bullet discharged. Dick spun low, escrima stick crackling in the dark, blinding the patrol. He wheeled through them in a blur of righteous movement that sent the six man team to the ground before they could properly mount a defense. The last body dropped, and Dick tossed his hair from his face.

“Just when I think you’re gone for good,” Dick mutters into the dark. He glanced around searching, but there was nothing in the dark. No sign that the presence was still there. “You could at least stick around sometime. Let me say hello.”

Silence met his complaints. Not that it bothered Dick. The System Dynamic’s data center’s core was offline and waiting for him to collect his evidence.

The clock was ticking. He had work to do.

***

As Dick progressed in the life of a vigilante, he had begun to recognize the signs of the presence, still rare but appearing when he was in immediate danger. The chill of warning, the coaxing scent of orange blossoms and spiced wood, and the memories of his past at crossroads moments in his life had become a familiar presence over the years. He’s never sure how often those thoughts were his own and when they were the result of this other that haunted his life. But he’s sure he was alive because of it, and one day he’d have a reckoning and figure out why.

It was a mystery that beckoned from just beyond Dick’s view. Strangely, it was also a mystery that he chose not to dive into headlong with the single-minded intensity that the last Flying Grayson had been known to have. Putting off the search for answers was necessary. Dick didn’t have the time to spare, reeling from crisis to crisis as he did--personal, professional, emotional. When he sat down to contemplate the matter, Dick often concluded that he wasn’t ready for whatever the search might throw him. That he couldn’t bear to understand a world where he was chosen to live while others died. And a small part of him feared that if he did seek out the truth, if he did go to someone that may know the answer, the presence, the light in the dark, the hand that was there for him would disappear for good.

Standing against the shadows when the world grew dark and the nothingness closed in, Dick wasn’t sure if he wanted to face that alone.

There is one thing Dick knows for sure. For all Dick’s memories of the encroaching dark and the hand guiding him through it, he had certainly never seen a figure as he did in the milliseconds before the blast broke free. A sweep of white, the flash of a blade, a shadow rising and gold light rushing up to meet the flames billowing up. Dick saw it all in the blink of an eye before his world shattered into smoke and ash.

***

Dick wakes with a start. The smoke in his lungs expels in a rush. He coughs sluggishly, half choked on the acrid, dry film coating his mouth. Blinking through the dizziness, Dick begins to take stock of his body and the world around him.

His head throbs and his entire body aches, and a heavy weight rests over him. Some kind of collapse, he questions, tilting to make sure.

"Holy harpies, Batman," he rasps, horrified and amazed to find the body sprawled over him. Broad bare shoulders, a beautiful face with a small halo of circling a noble brow next to Dick’s. Fanning high from the body are a pair of great black wings. It feels like night beneath their shadow, cool and refreshing. Dick watches as a single black feather ignites in pale fire before floating into the air.

Another feather detaches and joins the first, another and another until the entirety of his vision seemed illuminated by candles.

It returns to him in a rush. The fading glow of a sword, black feathers floating into the sky, the inhuman beauty in this still face, everything proclaimed the stranger as something unworldly, godly in a way Dick had never before been willing to believe.

Trembling fingers slid over the still cheek. There is no reaction, only the trail of soot from Dick’s gloves. He touches him again gently, angry and confused. “It’s you,” he whispers, woozily. “You saved me.”

Dick takes a steadying breath and starts the task of extracting himself. The pain is negligible, surprisingly so. He wiggles his way from under the heavy weight of man and slowly fading wings and stands taking in the damage.

The large sucking hole in the side of the building lets in the wind and rain and the search lights from down below. Charles lays sprawled on the ground, chest moving in a soft rhythm. The CEO is also near the place he had been standing, but now he lay in a heap gibbering while unconcious. Dick turns back to the… the impossibility at his feet.

“You saved all of us.”

With the battle over, Dick can now hear the shouts and panicked cries below, the harried voices of uncertain authority shouting orders from the streets below. Senses stretching further, he can hear the faint sound of boots clambering up stairs and guns cocking, the whining drone of a helicopter in the sky.

"We gotta get out of here," he coughs. Stating the obvious is something he's good at. He learns rather quickly that this guy is heavy. Heavier than a man of his size and musculature should be. Dick staggers under his weight ready for the next problem.

“Okay, handsome? _How_ are we going to get out of here?

***

It feels odd carefully tucking his vintage Gray Ghost collectable sheets around the wide shoulders of a man, who sprung out of existence to save him and the other two men from a misguided attempt for justice, but Dick is out of clean sheets.

The Batplane had arrived minutes before the GPD tactical squad burst through the door. Batman had been overbearingly silent, a sign of his concern, but he agreed to funnel the information to the right channels for Dick, and had accepted Dick’s vague replies about his companion, proving that no matter who he is, this man (angel?) is clearly a miracle.

_(“Your friend.”_

_“He helped us.”_

_“Meta or magic?”_

_“Magic. Probably.”_

_“Can you contain him?”_

_“Of course, if you let me do this my way. Will you let me do this my way?”_

_“For now.”)_

Carefully, Dick brushed back the dark hair from the man so he could study his face; the face of the presence he’s been fighting against all his life. It was imposing, cold, and beautiful.

“You’re the one trying to help me, huh?” He wants to laugh and he wants to shout, a childish rage still burning inside him. Before, Dick had been saved where his parents had not. Tonight, everyone made it out alive. Dick knew he couldn’t let that thought take root in him, he couldn’t allow it to tarnish everything he accomplished tonight but. Dick is only human, and the truth of that statement is more apparent than ever right now. At the same time, now that the strange presence has a face, it’s hard to hold on to that rage. Truthfully, Dick lost the edge of it long ago, on a rooftop or under ground, when his parachute snapped or when the love of his life left him a second time and the world closed in on him once again.

This man, this angel, saved Dick from certain death. This time, it appears to have been at some cost. The last of his wings had disappeared between Dick hauling the stranger up and staggering to the Batplane, and the flame circling on his forehead appears to be fading as well. He wonders if there had been a price before, the day his parents died, the day he was nearly shot, and the hundreds of other times certain death held Dick in its grasp only to be eluded.

“I hope you wake up soon. I have some things I want to say to you.” Dick offers a humorless smile. “Don’t worry, it’s an apology, and I’m pretty sure it’s long overdue.”

***

Having an angel around the house is the same awkward, yet life affirming experience as realizing the thing you’ve thought was wrong for you and will ruin your life is actually wonderful.

Coincidentally, Dick decides he has more apologies to make in the future, starting with Bruce and his struggle to make peace with his feelings for Selina.... and Talia.

Dick closes his gym for the rest of the week so he can make sure he’s in the apartment when the angel wakes. And he’s taken to referring to the angel as such because everything else felt wrong. The body, while seemingly human, did not respirate, and despite feeling warm to the touch, did not register a temperature on the thermometer. He wore a twisting cloth the color of fresh snow that twisted over one shoulder and then wrapped around his lower body like a loose pair of bombachos that would not come off, so Dick left them be, only cleaning the vestiges of soot from his skin.

Then he prepares for the angel to rise.

To keep busy, Dick finalizes his mission report and sends it to Batman. Then he tidies his apartment. Honest to god--whoo boy that one there--cleans from top to bottom and even takes down the items to the shelter that has been cluttering his hallway. Another small miracle, he thinks with a laugh.

Dick finds himself peeking into the bedroom throughout the day. On the hour, whenever he could. He expects the bed to be empty each time, and each time he’s surprised to see this handsome stranger resting there peacefully. Through the clatter of the boxes falling out of Dick’s closet when he searched for the vacuum cleaner and the vacuuming itself. Then the fire alarm that went off twice; once for the vacuum bag putting out hazardous levels of smoke and then the burning of the meal Dick had tried to prepare because preprocessed foods couldn’t be good for whatever this man is. Although Dick is glad he had no witnesses to his embarrassing attempts at housekeeping, he is a bit sad that the noise and confusion didn’t wake his guest.

There are so many things he wants to say. So many questions he has to ask. Those questions multiply hourly. Those answers will come with time, he’s sure.

Two days later, the angel has yet to rise, so Dick calls the foremost supernatural expert on the, mostly, side of good: John Constantine.

“What can you tell me about… winged beings?”

Constantine takes a long drag of his cigarette before blowing circles into the air. His face floats in a pool of arcane fire that floats above Dick’s dinner table. "You're going to have to be more specific, luv. Do you mean faeries? Dragons? Harpies? Chimera? Demons? There are many nasties out there with wings.”

Dick drags fingers through his hair and sighs. “Yeah, I know. Alright, what can you tell me about angels? Are they. Real?”

“What couldn’t I tell you about angels. Self-righteous fanatics with a perverted streak wider than… wider than King Shark’s dongers.”

Dick stays focused on the task at hand rather than the very obvious questions Constantine is gleefully ready to answer. “So they are real then?”

“As real as you an’ me. Never really see them walking around on the mortal coil though, which is the best thing for all of us.”

“So if you do see one that means something’s wrong, huh? Is there something going on in that realm right now?”

“Not that they’ve deigned to say recently.” Constantine drags his gaze up and down Dick’s body twice. “Have you been approached by an angel? ‘Cause I see a little bit of the divine about your person.”

“Not really. I think one’s been protecting me?” He pitches the statement as a question, but Dick knows, despite how hard he’s denied it, his angel has protected him for a long time.

“Bloody hell, a guardian?” Constantine sighs gustily. “You must be in deeper than I thought, luv. How about the other side? Seen any wriggly tiggly shadows following you about?”

“Nothing supernatural and no more than usual. Should I be worried?”

“Yes, you should be worried. A guardian angel means direct recruitment from the Court of Owlsfarious. Mid-tier demon lord looking to climb the ranks. Strong souls, pure souls, lost souls, they’re all powerful if you can corrupt them.”

“I thought he was just saving my life?”

“To a certain extent, but I’m sure he is mainly saving the purity of your soul.”

“Huh.”

“Look, guardian angels are by-the-book security experts. They’ll do the job and then move along until you have another problem. I’ll send you a ward for the demons though. Nasty pieces of work there.”

“So, the angel will just leave?”

“What? He’s still there?” Constantine’s head begins to twist and turn searching for danger. “Where is he? What’s he doing?”

“Ah,” Dick peeks over his shoulder to the open bedroom door. “I think he’s sleeping.”

“Completely knackered?”

“For a couple of days now.”

Constantine let out a low whistle. “You must have been in some trouble. Ah well, just keep a window open and he’ll fly out when he’s finished resting. Don’t try to talk with them. They’re all bloody perverts who will twist you up inside, and whatever you do, don’t feed them.”

Dick laughs. “Seriously? You should like the old man in a horror movie.”

“A shame when the youth refuses to heed your advice,” Constantine says. “Welp, I’ll be readying up my banishing spell and a big fat I told you so. Just call me when you’re ready for them.”

***

Dick spends the rest of his afternoon on the edge of his bed marveling at the fact that he is virtually unharmed after being caught in the center of an explosive blast still headlining the news reports.

Rather quickly, he realizes he’s being watched. Dick lifts his head and meets glowing green eyes that sweep across his face as if to memorize his appearance. Dick feels himself give the angel the same scrutiny. His face had been slack before. His mouth is full and soft, his cheeks high and cut, his hair dark and unruly, and the small ring of fire across his forehead seems to flicker in and out of existence.

Awake, color blooming across his chiseled features, the angel is achingly beautiful and young, somehow. It’s in the wide-eyed awe that he lavishes upon Dick.

“You’re awake,” Dick says, voice soft.

His words are met with silence and intensity. Slowly, the figure rolls to his side, sheet spilling from his bare chest like water, and takes Dick’s hand in his. Soft lips part, but no sound comes out. The handsome face furrows in confusion and tries again. No words are uttered.

“Are you alright?” A slow blink is his response.

“Are you an angel?” Dick whispers, afraid of saying the word aloud and afraid of the answer despite already knowing it to be true. It’s easier thinking this being is an angel, but if it’s true, he’d have to start thinking about what this means. If his powers are faltering like Dick believes they are. If his angel has… fallen.

The answer comes in another slow blink. Those heavy lashes wave down slowly and open again at a speed that causes Dick’s breath to catch from anticipation.

“Are you my guardian angel?” Another slow blink and a flare in those eyes that Dick knew meant yes and more. He licked his lips considering his next question. “What’s your name?”

The hand holding his shifts, twisting exposing Dick’s palm to the air. One finger began to trace along the calloused skin at the center with deliberate care that sends shivers through Dick’s bloodstream. He stares blindly when it ends, confused. The angel’s full lips canter into a smile that devastated Dick’s thoughts all over again. He finds his hands squeezed in rebuke, and the light in the angel’s eye commanded him to pay attention.

“Alright, alright. Sorry. I just….” He trails away, unable to explain why it happened when he only knew that it did. The finger began moving again.

Dick recites the letters aloud as they take form in his mind. “I… A… S...O… N. Jason?”

Another slow blink confirms his guess, and Dick sighs in relief, not wanting to disrespect the person who saved his life over and over again more than he already has.

“Jason. Jason,” he repeats the name and is rewarded with a smile that makes his chest twist.

 _Once more_ , the angel, _Jason_ , mouths, and Dick is helpless to do anything but say his name again.

“Jason, Jason, Jason. I think I should apologize to you. Thank you and apologize to you. I know you’ve been there when I needed you without asking. You saved me and I--” He’s stopped by the press of a single finger to his lips. They stare at each other for a moment, Jason’s green eyes serious and Dick flushing from the simple touch. It turns into a full body blush when Jason hauls Dick onto the bed with him shifting until they’re aligned thigh to thigh, head to chest.

“I guess we’re just going to rest here?” Dick says, voice muffled by the warm apricot soft skin pressed against his cheek.

Hesitant fingers carded through his hair slowly, then again with more confidence when Dick released a heartfelt sigh. On the third pass, Dick’s body had melted, and by the sixth, his eyes had fallen closed.

It’s okay. They can work all this out after another nap.

Hours later, he wakes in a puddle of sunlight, green eyes warm on him.

***

Despite leaving the window open and pushing aside all manners urging Dick to offer food, the angel doesn’t leave. Instead, he wanders around the apartment, handsome face soft as he pokes through the knick knacks, books, and photographs Dick has spread about his apartment.

Jason is, without a doubt, the most distracting guest Dick has ever welcomed into his home. Though the sweatpants fit him well enough, Jason is still shirtless. It had been the best decision for everything except Dick’s beleaguered eyes. The poor cotton t-shirts Dick tried to donate were no match for the sheer breadth of Jason’s musculature. Seams popped and fabric snapped when he moved.

Jason brings him things throughout the morning, and Dick shows him how they work. A mechanical music box in the form of a small boy doing somersaults with a bear that he picked up in Germany long ago. A stack of novels Dick recapped only to find Jason reading through later that day before returning each to their place on Dick’s newly decluttered bookshelf. A book of matches etched with gold ink and soft wax.

“Yeah, I got that from a friend. Constantine?” He continues when the name receives not even a twitch from the angel. “He said it would help me if Owlfarious’s minions show up.”

Jason’s expression grows solemn. He takes Dick’s hand in his and squeezes gently.

“You know about them?” Unsurprisingly, Jason blinks in response but offers no other reply.

Four days in each other’s company, and Jason only awake and moving for the last one, he hasn’t shown any signs of doing more than staying within reach.  
Dick’s been in this game for a long time now, and he knows when someone is avoiding an issue. He could probably write a book on it himself. But if there is danger lurking nearby, he needs to understand so he can help protect himself and Jason. He tells this to Jason, who leads them to the couch.

“This really is important, Jason. We need to talk about what happened at the Systems building. I also need to know about Owlsfarious. Are they searching for me specifically? Are you here to protect me from them?”

Jason cocks his head. His beautiful mouth parts in a smile that Dick can just sit and stare at forever, slow and sure as a sunrise as they part and close. Part and close. Dick shakes himself out of another stupor. Jason is mouthing words at him.

“You need to replenish your strength first? Okay, okay. If my cooking is really that bad, I can order take out,” Dick offers, embarrassed in some undefined way, and it deepens with the angel’s regal head tilts back in silent laughter.

Jason shakes his head. _No_ , he mouths while his hands move in bold signs. _I need to worship._

“Ooh.” Dick nods in understanding. Worship. Of course. This makes perfect sense. In his travels with Donna, he’s heard Olympian gods mention the strength they wielded depended on their worshipers. It makes sense that Jason would also have a similar reciprocal relationship if faith is the source of an angel’s power.

“Can I do anything to help?”

Jason’s expression shutters reverting to the living statue that lay on Dick’s bed for several days. Even the light in his eyes grows dim. _Way to ruin things, huh Grayson_ , is what he says to himself the second before Jason’s sears him with a pleading glance. His hands move quickly.

_Please, allow me to worship you._

“Okay,” Dick draws the word out slowly. “If you think it will help. What will I have to do?”

***

Worship, it turns out, is devastatingly simple intimacy.

At first.

It starts with Dick perched on the couch with Jason on his heels staring up at him, enraptured. Endless minutes of being stared at later, Dick thinks this isn’t so bad. Except for how weird it is. Weird, because despite how embarrassed he feels under the unabashed adoration in Jason’s gaze, he can’t help but stare in return. He’s as fascinated by Jason, his guardian angel, as Jason is with him.

It isn’t about Jason’s beauty--sculpted muscle, flawless skin, and intense eyes--although Dick will say that’s part of the attraction, the mystery. But it’s mostly how all that power and grace is laced with an air of innocence. Not innocent, Dick thinks when Jason rises to his knees, a freedom, a newness, like the world around him is new and wonderful, and Dick is at the very center of it.

Dick flushes at the sentiment, but that’s what he feels when Jason looks at him. When Jason wraps a strong hand around his ankle and lifts his foot and.

Dick jerks. “What are you?” Soft lips brush the arch of his foot. “Uh. Jason?”

Curious thumbs press along Dick’s sole and another light touch of lips spread over the bridge of his foot. The feathery touch should tickle, but it doesn't. It does the opposite. Alarm bells start to chime in his head, and Dick reaches out to stop him. His hand is caught in Jason’s, and he’s nearly blinded by a tender smile of delight. The tip of each finger is kissed. His palm is nuzzled, his pulse tasted, and Dick can only stare in wide-eyed amazement. Amazed that this is happening. His arm is folded back so that his hand grips the back of his couch and the sensitive skin of his inner arm is assaulted with soft kisses that sends shivers down his spine. His left arm receives the same treatment, slow kisses and all. Dick’s nipples tighten, his stomach twists, and Jason simply smiles at him and cups his cheeks in his two large hands and tilts Dick head up.

“Dick.” His name, the first word the angel has spoken is soft against Dick’s lips. No breath, only sound and a sweet scent, orange blossoms and spiced wood, and Dick devours it all in a gentle kiss.

Such a familiar scent. Could it be that each time Dick had scented it in the past, Jason had been--the thought is arrested by the warm swipe of a tongue against his lips. Dick parts his mouth. The kiss deepens. Hesitance becomes questioning turns to exploration turns to domination, and Dick melts into the kiss knowing that this.

This is. This power, this yearning, this fire building inside him.

Dick moans, arching up from the couch, “This. This is worship?”

“This is worship,” Jason echoes. “And I have longed to worship you, Dick Grayson. Please, please let me have this chance.” His lips are on Dick’s before he can even finish nodding.

Worship is Dick holding his knees as a heavenly mouth sucks down the length of his cock and attentive fingers curl into his damp hole, wet and opened by a tongue with the flexibility of a liar and the heat of a whip.

Worship is the flex and swallow of a throat that knows no inhibitions and a body that does not need air milking him inside and out until he spills with rapturous cries.

Worship is heated kisses pressed against his pleading mouth and weight on his lap, hands on his flagging erection, pressure and heat opening and then entangling his cock in the body as hot as the heart of a star grinding down on him again and again while he coaxing him through kiss after soul-stealing kiss.

Finally, Jason pulls away, and Dick focuses on breathing through the exquisite pleasure wracking through his body. He’s helpless to do anything but stare into Jason’s green eyes.

“Your kiss is a benediction. Grant it to me.” Jason murmurs. The flame upon his brow ignites as if giving direction.

“Okay. Yeah. Kiss the flame,” Dick says, stupidly. He finally releases his hands from the couch and catches Jason’s head to draw him closer. The flame is cool to the touch. The simple kiss draws a moan from the angel’s very bones. Dick stares, wide eyed.

If that’s what a kiss could do. What would a--his tongue flicks out. Dick’s world stops.

When he comes to, Dick is aware of the weight on his thighs and the twitch of his cock spurting on his belly. Jason’s hands cup his cheeks. He presses two kisses to Dick’s slack mouth.

“I saw darkness,” Dick stutters, “And light and life. I saw you. But it wasn’t you, through the window of a fire escape and I.” He’s silenced by a soft kiss.

“You tasted divinity.”

Dick blinks at that. “Right. Okay, yeah. Divinity,” he says, smoothing his hands down Jason’s flanks, “That was incredible. Did you? I mean. Did it happen to you too?” He looks down at the mess between them and frowns. He doesn’t mean to, but between everything that happened, he hadn’t noticed, and he doesn’t know how to bring up the unblemished skin at the apex of Jason’s thighs.

Perhaps he’s not as discreet as he had thought. Jason’s look of quiet adoration shifts to something almost amused.

“I’m not staring. I just didn’t,” He starts. Stops at the sight of the fire across Jaosn’s brow expanding. A blunt shape begins to appear, curved up and white as bone. It looks like a horn.

It looks like a horn.

“Jason.” Dick’s voice wavers. “What is that?”

“You are a child without fear,” Jason whispers. “Do not fear me.” The horn ceases its growth. Jason reaches up and snaps it free with a swift tug. Dick stare moves from the glowing white curve of it resting in Jason’s palm to the smooth skin of his forehead.

“I’m just not sure where we’re going here. With that. It's kinda small....” For a weapon, he ends in his head, stopped by Jason's silent stare. Dick feels judged. A wave of heat surrounds Jason’s hand, the air hazes and the horn. Dick squints.

“Is that bigger now?”

One deliberate and somehow fond blink is his reply.

Slowly, Jason flips the horn vertically, and the shape becomes more apparent in Dick’s brain. His already racing through the possibilities before it travels to Jason’s groin, and his mouth moves quicker than even that.

“Holy _fuck_ ,” he manages.

The phallus, engulfed in pale flames, locks into place.

Legs hooked over his arms, cold fire pressing against his slick hole, Dick stares into Jason’s fiery eyes and wonders if he should learn how to pray.

***

After another, quite literally, glorious round of sex and a shower that left Dick embarrassingly clean and blushing through dinner, Dick finally detaches himself from Jason long enough to stretch. It’s a part of his daily routine, and after the rigorous workout he received today, it’s definitely needed.

He smiles, spying Jason adopting modified versions of his poses. It’s only when Dick flicked his glance away from Jason in a concentrated effort to stop staring that Dick sees the shadow moving across the wall of the building next door.

The shadow joined another and another, and they stretched nimbly to avoid the waning sunlight.

“That’s definitely a wiggle and a tiggle,” he mutters, rising to his feet only to stumble backwards when a small blue match book cartwheels past his nose.

The match book flips open on its own, and a single match lifts free. It swipes across the striker and rises high, a solitary flame of pure gold. Magic spun outward, a mix of gold light and rotating symbols that splashed themselves against the wall before fading away but for the faint glow illuminating the apartment windows.

Dick eyes the skin-crawling crowd amassing beyond his walls.

“Jason I think we have some company.” A warm hand settled on his shoulder.

Shadowy, amorphous creatures with long limbs and white masks covered the side of the apartment building next door. They roost on the balconies and rooftop like malignant birds. Their glowing red eyes stared straight at Dick’s apartment.

“Now what do we do?”

Jason cocks his head. “Am I not here to protect you?” He unlatches the window and climbs through before Dick can stop him, leaping over the windowsill to the firescape, and the old metal to empty air landing lightly as if the sky was solid ground.

Dick releases a slow breath. At least Jason had regained some of his powers. Hopefully.

The demons began to swarm circling near to Jason’s position. The power of Constantine’s wards flashed if they came too close, and they skittered away japing loudly. Their voices are loud and jeering and scolding like birds. If Dick listens closely enough, he can just make out their voices chasing each other in the winds.

_Fallen._

_Failure._

_Hungry soul._

_Desecrated._

_We see you, guardian. And we will claim you as well as your charge. You will join us… feed us…._

_Impurity. We taste it. Lust, the sweet scent of weakness, it calls to us. Will you join us at last, brother?_

Jason’s hands clap together. The sound strikes the air like thunder. “Which of you are so foolish to assume that I have fallen.”

Suddenly, Jason’s body began to glow with incandescent light, and from his back spread a massive sweep of black wings. They fill the night sky.

“My will was born from his first cry. My laughter is his joy; his sorrows are my rage. How am I anything but the purest love to be claimed by Richard Grayson alone.”

The light of his visage expands like a drop of sunlight blinding to the unclean eyes that had thought to gaze upon him. It builds like a chorus, lower and higher, bright and unyielding until even Dick has to turn his gaze away.

When the light disappears, only the angel stands in the sky.

Jason climbs back through the window. The blazing glow around him has faded. His wings had disappeared before he set foot on the fire escape.

“Are you alright?” Dick asks. At once the stern set of Jason’s mouth fades into a smile and he nods in response to the question. “Are they gone?”

“For now,” says Jason. “I do not think they will bother you again soon.” He takes Dick’s hand and leads him back to the yoga mat. “Now come. Teach me about your dog style.”

Dick allows himself to be pulled away. He knows they have a lot to discuss, answers he should piece together, but his cheeks are burning in the aftermath of Jason’s words and the feeling of walking with his angel, hand in hand. He sighs helplessly.

It’s okay. They can figure it all out tomorrow.


End file.
